AI, bots might dominate Facebook's 2017 F8 developer conference

New York, April 18 (IANS) Apart from updates to the products and services, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and bots could be the main talking points at Facebook's big F8 developer conference this year.

At the April 18-19 conference in San Jose, the company might also lay out plans and updates for some of its key initiatives, like messaging and live video, Re/Code reported on Monday.

The event, which is expecting close to 4,000 attendees, will kick off with a keynote from CEO Mark Zuckerberg at 10 a.m. (pacific time).

Other Facebook properties like Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus might not be involved in this year's conference as well.

Facebook is expected to focus on Messenger and its connectivity efforts to bring internet to remote areas around the world.

The company may also shed some light on its secretive hardware efforts, including new cameras and augmented reality, according to Business Insider.

Last year, Facebook extended the conference to two days and launched its bot platform for Messenger, showed off virtual reality, pushed deeper into live video and rolled out a 360-degree video camera, the report said.

According to TechCrunch, the company might announce more bots for Messenger groups and a platform so outsiders can build more features for the Facebook camera.